Meetings That Create Momentum, Like A Ladyboss

I'm Alex Charfen and this is the Momentum Podcast made for empire builders, game changers, trail blazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers, and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution.

Sure we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny. We define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo we are the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters. Clearly the most important people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution and we always will be.

Meetings that create momentum like a LadyBoss. I have this incredible client, LadyBoss, the company is LadyBoss. The two entrepreneurs who run it are Brandon and Kaelin Poulin and they are absolutely world changing, game changing entrepreneurs. We've been working together for just a few months. They have grown this massive organization where Brandon left me some numbers the other day. They've had over 110,000 women buy from them. 110,000 women. That's like three football stadiums. It's incredible how many people around the world have had their lives touched by Brandon and Kaelin and the message they have of helping women lose weight, get in shape, but here's the key. By learning to love themselves again. They are doing something completely revolutionary and different in the world.

And we got together a few months ago because this type of an idea, this type of a movement, this type of massive contribution needs a team that can back it up, make things happen, go out and just do whatever it takes to go make the contribution they're making and keep this company growing. And for the past few months we've been working on systems and strategies and the process for growing a company, the cadence for the team. And how Brandon and Kaelin will be communicating with the team.

And when we first started I remember Brandon saying, “Growing a team is hard. It's difficult. It feels like a lot of pressure. When I think of growing the team I get uncomfortable.” And I want you to know and every entrepreneur out there to know that every one of us, me included, gets uncomfortable when it comes time to grow the team. Here's why. When we bring in a team, there's more variables, there's more people. It's not up to us anymore. It's not just us going out and getting something done. Now we have to have other people doing it. It feels like there's drag. It slows things down. And often times when we start to build a team it feels like it got harder once we started trying to get help.

I think that's one of the biggest entrepreneurial complaints about team building is that once we try and get help it feels like we're slowing everything down and none of us, no entrepreneur I've ever worked with, wants to purposefully, intentionally slow things down for no reason. We want to speed things up. Make them go faster. Make them be better.

And here's a way for you to consider building your team like Brandon and Kaelin are, where you will get completely different results. When you are raw, when you are real, when you are transparent with your team and you tell them who you really are and what's really going on and where you've been and where you've come from and you let them in, you will create a new level of connection and a new level of momentum around the people you work with every single day.

So in the past week, or last week, Brandon and Kaelin had a meeting with their teams and we set it up so that it would create momentum. They didn't just have a meeting. They flew in their team. They brought them to their office. They went through goal setting with them and creating the forward-looking planning that is going to show everyone on that team exactly where the company's going for the next year. They got everyone's commitment, buy in, and consensus that they agreed on what was going on. And then they had their culture meeting where they shared who they are, what they are. And my direction to Brandon and Kaelin was simple. Be raw, real, and vulnerable. Show your team who you really are and it will create momentum.

Well, thankfully Brandon and Kaelin are two of the most intensive entrepreneurs I've ever worked with and they trusted that suggestion. And not only did they trust it, they're the type of people that when they believe in something they just go all in and they make it happen. How else could you get 110,000 customers. And they did.

They held the meeting and it went incredibly well. In fact, on the way out of the meeting, Brandon left me a message and I get goosebumps every time I listen to it because I just think of how incredible Brandon's ability is to grow, and understand, and apply, and change behavior which is what it takes to grow a business. And he has gone from the person who told me, “I really don't want to grow a team. Every time the team grows it's stressful. I don't know that I want to do this,” to being the person who said this. I want you to listen to the message he left me with Kaelin in the car driving home from the meeting they held with their team. I think it's going to blow you away just like it did me. In fact, can you imagine what it would feel like if you had meetings with your teams and it felt like this.

Brandon Poulin: Dude.

Kaelin Poulin: Dude!

Brandon Poulin: That was like the best day ever in my career. It was phenomenal. We have the most incredible team. People cried when we rolled out profit share.

Kaelin Poulin: Like legit crying [crosstalk 00:06:08].

Brandon Poulin: Legit cried. They're so bought in. They're like just ultimate ownership. Yeah, it was incredible, man. So just wanted to share that with you. And the goals, like they all set their own targets, their own goals. And I just kind of coached them and yeah. I mean it's awesome. I can't wait to see what comes out of all of this in the next 30 days. Even the next 30 days it's going to be insane so super awesome. Just wanted to share that with you.

Alex Charfen: When I got that message I got goosebumps, I got a little emotional because I know that when entrepreneurs, like Brandon and Kaelin, are real and vulnerable with their team and they let the team have responsibility and they allow them to be involved in the goal setting and outcome setting process and they get consensus, everything in that business is going to grow. Everything in the contribution they're making is going to grow. And I support their mission fully and totally.

There are far too many women out there struggling with their appearance, with their weight, with their fitness, and feeling like it's all their fault. Once they learn how to love themselves again, their world changes and they almost organically, innately, automatically start getting in better shape. I see it all the time with Kaelin's clients, with Brandon's clients, with the people that they're working with. They are absolutely irrevocable and indelibly changing the world with their business.

So after Brandon left me that message, I left him a message back and said, “Hey guys, I just want you to really internalize this. Think about it. Let it resonate with you that just a few months ago we were talking about how difficult it was to build a team and now you're in this place that because you were raw, and real, and vulnerable with your team you let them in, you gave them responsibility. You let them step up. Time with your team is creating momentum. Time with your team is creating momentum. I want entrepreneurs to know that when you do things right, meetings, the time with your team, the time that we all roll our eyes and think, 'I don't want to go to another meeting,' can be a celebration. Can create momentum. Can show you more potential in your life than anything else you do.”

When I left that, Brandon and Kaelin left me one more [Voxer 00:08:29] and I think you should hear it because it shows just how dramatic the results can be when you allow yourself to be who you are and you show up as everything who you really are with meetings in with your team.

Brandon Poulin: Yeah man, I appreciate that and definitely got to cherish the power moments for the [inaudible 00:08:52]so . Yeah, it was crazy because we shared our backstory. We started out with the culture side and just our career and why we left the company and the integrity that was missing and it was so powerful. We had literally people were just floored and it was like, “Wow.” They just feel so a part of it. It's like grassroots. And it really has that.

We've exploded in two years.

Kaelin Poulin: We were also at rock bottom when we started.

Brandon Poulin: But we were like rock bottom when this company started. Literally like can't afford rent and so it's just amazing to hear, to see everyone's faces just responding to that. And then like with profit share and people saying things like, "I've never been a part of a company that-

Kaelin Poulin: Has invested in me.

Brandon Poulin: ... has invested in me like this-"

Kaelin Poulin: I'm so bought in. Brandon Poulin: ... I'm so bought in, saying that, and just you know. It was really cool.

And what was also cool is because we shared vulnerable things, I remember you had said, “Make it a point to share the low parts and the hardships.” When we were sharing our story. So when I got to the part where I asked people, “Why are you working here?” And then we, “What's the challenges? What'd you overcome? What'd you learn in the last quarter?" But when people are like, "Why are you working here?," everyone told their story of how they got started and hired and all that. It was cool.

Rachel, our executive assistant, she was like, “I got thrown in.” She had been an executive assistant before and she was talking about how in other companies the executive assistant is the meat shield for all the people that are like an angry mob, trying to get their agenda's accomplished. The culture is do whatever you can to not lose your job. The executive assistant is the meat shield taking all the people trying to force their agenda on the CEO or whatever. I was like, “Man, that's insane. It's not like that at all here.”

Kaelin Poulin: [crosstalk 00:10:38] really vulnerable.

Brandon Poulin: Gave me some perspective. Everyone got really vulnerable about that and-

Kaelin Poulin: Their struggles.

Brandon Poulin: ... their struggle and it was just really powerful overall. Yeah. It's amazing.

Alex Charfen: That second message really explains exactly what it feels like to be an entrepreneur who is willing to drop the veneer, get real, get raw, get vulnerable, and tell your team who you really are. How you really got to where you are. Not all the good parts, but the bad parts too, the challenges, the bumps along the way, the things that you had to put up with, the things that you had to endure and overcome. Because when you share at that level with your team here's what happens. You can hear it in Brandon's and Kaelin's voice on that last recording.

The two of them were the example that their team accepted and then the whole team was raw, and real, and vulnerable and creates transparency. And an atmosphere where people can be who they really are, an atmosphere where people can sign up to achieve because they know that they will be accepted. They will be understood for who they are. And when you as a leader are willing to tell your team why you're really doing what you're doing, what you got into it for, and how hard it has been, that team will support you in an entirely different way.

Brandon and Kaelin are two of the most talented people I've ever worked with. I know that they would've built their team whether they worked with me or not, but when they are given instructions or given direction that they trust and given a path that they can see, they go all in as much as any other entrepreneurial couple I've ever worked with. And that message just proves that if you are willing to be real with your team, everything in the way that you live with and manage the people around you, the way you lead your team, the way you lead the growth of your organization will change.

See fake it till you make it, and never let them see you sweat, and don't share what's really going on, and don't tell anybody what's really happening, and keep everything locked up and compartmentalized doesn't work. Anyone who's trying to build a business that way is only going to build frustration, doubt, and irritation with their team. You're going to create animosity with the very people who are trying to help you build your empire every day. If you're willing to take a step back be real, be raw, and be vulnerable meetings will create momentum just like a LadyBoss.

If you're ready to create momentum for yourself, if you've ready to understand yourself at another level, download my book, the Entrepreneurial Personality Type. Go to freemomentumbook right now. Freemomentumbook.com. Download the Entrepreneurial Personality Type. It may tell you more about yourself than anyone ever has because if you're ready to go out and create your business, build your empire, find the team around you who's going to help you make the outcome in the world that you know you should be making, download the Entrepreneurial Personality Type and learn more about yourself than you ever have in any book.